


Fatherhood

by Sherbs



Category: Changeling: the Dreaming
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 21:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherbs/pseuds/Sherbs
Summary: Parenting teenagers is tough enough without supernatural complications.





	Fatherhood

**Author's Note:**

> Stand alone snapshot based on my old Changeling character, a fox pooka.

Fatherhood

Paul Vernon sat behind his desk, alone in his study, photographs of his family smiling down at him from the bookcase. He hated this waiting, what could he say? how should he handle this? he had to admit that he was running out of ideas. He looked over at the picture of his daughter and sighed, somehow, he felt, he ought to have known. He should have been able to tell this was coming, looking back on it now he saw, she had always been the unusual one.

He had rushed back from his conference to pick them up from the hospital, berating himself for having been away at the time of her birth but it had been such a short labour and by the time he had recieved the message it had been too late. The baby had arrived to her own schedule, the doctors had been as surprised as anyone.

"Jae?" he had asked, "what kind of name is that for a girl?"  
Martine shrugged "I like it" was all she would say.  
"I don't know why I let you chose names, I mean, Annalee? for gooodness sake Martine . . . !"  
He had decided then and there that the next child would have some sensible name, one people could spell and pronounce. Eventually they had compromised, Jae became Sara, then Sara Jae, and finally Sara-Jae, but in his own mind she would always be Sara.

Back home, taking the child out of the car-seat the blankets fell aside and he'd had his first real chance to take a look at his daughter. Fine red hair with black tips and when she opened her eyes to look up at him he caught the flash of gold and amber and started back. His surprise shocked the baby and she began to cry, hurriedly he handed her over to Martine.

"Marti, where on earth did she get that hair? and those eyes, are you sure she's ok, I mean, that's just not natural, is it?"  
His wife had smiled and settled the baby back to sleep.  
"it's ok, she's fine, the doctors were as shocked as you but they reckon she sees fine though we won't know for sure for a while yet but the hair is weird, I'll grant you, it must be a recessive thing. You should have seen her when she was first born though . . .

(that had stung)

. . . red hair all over. When I saw her first she looked more like a little fox cub or a puppy than a baby but it all fell out in the first day. I asked the staff about it but they said sometimes it happens like that, it's a genetic throwback" she shrugged, "don't you think she's beautiful then? your own daughter?"

He did think she was beautiful of course, she was his daughter after all, though he wondered about the red hair and it's origins for a long time to come. Blissfully dreaming and completely unaware of their concerns, the baby slept on, smiling in her sleep, it was probably wind he thought.

Back in the study Paul's eyes wandered over the pictures of his children in the garden, Sara and Annalee engrossed in their games. They had both been such happy children he had tried to ignore the oddities of his second daughter, put them out of his mind, but it had not been easy. Her school reports had been good though she had always been a day-dreamer, given to staring out of the windows rather than at her work. But now, things were changing, Sara was changing. Oh he knew she was growing up but he had been through this with Annalee and somehow it was not the same. They had tried to correct her teeth with braces, tried and failed. In the end even the consultants had run out of ideas and the girl was in so much discomfort that they had had them removed. Now everytime he looked at his daughter he remembered Martine's words all those years ago, "more like a little fox cub than a baby", it was foolish he knew, more fanciful than he was usually given to being, but still it bothered him; and sometimes, in a certain light, he almost thought he could see the ghost of the red hair that she had been born with on her bare arms and legs.

And now, she had disappeared again. The last time she had been gone so late they had been really frightened, a fifteen year old girl can get into some serious trouble alone in a city the size of London. He and Martine had waited up. He hoped to God it was not drugs, you heard such dreadful stories, saw such terrible things on the tv, he prayed she was more sensible than that. 

When she had returned he had grounded her for a month. Should he try it again this time? he was not sure it would have any effect but Paul Vernon had no other ideas. She would come home he told himself, she would walk back in and she would lie to him again and it would be like another knife in his heart but he knew no other way to handle this so he sat alone in the study and he waited for his daughter to come home.


End file.
